Now is the time to service your lawn mower

The Country is currently in a bit of a cold snap and with a few weeks to go until Christmas your thoughts may be on other things except your lawn.

I mowed my lawns last weekend, on the Saturday as the Sunday was forecast to be wet, and still managed to get around quarter to half the quantity of grass clippings off the lawns compared to in the normal growing season, which could be expected to be March to October. Check out the weather here.

There is an old wives tale of putting the lawn mower away in the shed in late October and not getting it out until the spring. This is not true. The grass plants will not stop growing, with growth simply slowing in the traditional colder winter months. The modern rule of thumb should be to plan to mow the lawns only once a month if the ground allows you to get on it/them in the first place and when it is mild and not frosty. I normally mow the lawns the week before Christmas as then this action tidies the garden ahead of the festive season.

Back to the lawn mower - not matter which type of lawn mower you have, beat the rush and call the lawn mower service company and get it booked in. Think ahead because in the spring when the garden wakes up again, there will be a real rush to get lawn mowers serviced ahead of the start of the mowing season and then there will be a delay in getting it back to you because it will have to wait its' turn in the queue. You never know, you might even get a mince pie when you visit the mower service centre. Ensure that you ask for a new blade. Lawn owners tend to ask for the blade to be just sharpened but if this task is not done correctly, an incorrectly sharpened and unbalanced blade can cause the lawn mower to be unstable when the blade whizzes around at 60 miles per hour the next time you use it. If during the summer you noticed brown and ragged tips appearing on the grass blades, then your mower is blunt and should be replaced!

Don't forget to keep off the lawn (and that included The Postman) when it is covered in frost otherwise you will snap the frozen grass tips resulting in perfect brown footprints in a couple of weeks time....